I was the only person in the funeral home room for a couple of hours. During those hours I sat alone, guarding the portrait and flowers my brother had received. I didn’t know what to expect, but I hoped it wouldn’t be sappy. I could picture him next to me, laughing at the dull way his funeral was decorated, bragging about how popular he was based on the amount of post-mortem gifts that littered the room, joking about how he thought our aunt was going to act. It all seemed too real…but it wasn’t.

He was gone. Nothing could change that. No matter how much I begged and pleaded that night with the doctors, they just smiled and told me that letting him go was for the best. The only thing I could think about was how damn stupid those “doctors” had been. My brother was an in-patient at that hospital for 6 months. If they were paying attention, even a little, they would’ve noticed his changes.

He was the only one I had in this world, and vice versa, even though it didn’t seem like it.

Eventually, a small group of people made their way into the room, and not long after, started hugging and sobbing, like they actually cared.

I sat and watched in disgust as this scene unfolded in front of me, turning around soon afterward.

“What are they doing?” asked my brother, who sat behind me.

“Crying.” I answered casually, un-acknowledging the fact that my dead brother was talking to me. This was surprisingly common a few days after his death.

“I know that, Mikyung. But why?”

“Because it would be rude not to show some sympathy.”

He sighed, “I’d rather they be rude than liars.”

He was right. He was so right., I thought, standing up to face the people behind me. I picked up a glass from the table beside me and hit it against the table, quickly silencing the room.

“What is all of this?” I asked, just like my brother had.

My mom removed the tissue from her face, “What do you mean, Mikyung-a?”

“I mean why are you crying? Half of you don’t even know my brother. Half of you don’t even like my brother. Some of you probably just showed up to make sure he was actually dead. Nobody cared about him, nobody cared about us. Stop lying to yourselves. More importantly, stop lying to him.” I scanned the room full of shocked faces before running out of the door and towards the city.

I didn’t know what I was doing…I didn’t even know where I was going.